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If the government is serious about achieving a four-day working week to raise productivity and improve employee wellbeing, it needs to encourage trials in the public sector. A recent trial by South Cambridgeshire Council showed how a four-day working week (32 hours on the same pay) can work successfully and offers a blueprint for wider trials across the public sector.
The government also needs to target a future date, say 2040, for the realisation of a four-day working week. This could be facilitated by establishing a partnership of unions and employers to identify barriers to a four-day working week and ways to overcome them.
Pathways to a four-day working week must address issues of inequality. It is important that low wages are addressed alongside work-time reduction. Making a four-day working week viable for more workers will inevitably require higher wages including a higher minimum wage.
A four-day working week can help respond to the problem of low productivity and address issues of climate change while improving the quality of life. It can and must be a part of the future of work.
But it will take effort to achieve it – not least from the government – and will test the limits of the law. It will entail a reimagining of the economy and a move to a situation where work and life are experienced differently and better. In the end, we must all work to work less.
I want this debate in my country, too.
Two women the YouTube algorithm brought me. When it works, it works.
Rosetta Thorpe: youtu.be/3NFywQdeK…
Jackie Venson: youtu.be/R1VztRpRf…
Childless Cat Ladies FTW.
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Manifesto for the Intentional Web
We the humans of the Internet, promote and uphold the following ideals when it comes to the web content we want to create and consume.
- Written by humans.
- Written for humans.
- Engagement is not a measure, it is an action.
- Algorithms don’t direct our attention.
- We curate our consumption.
- Open discourse is not to be weaponized.
- Our feeds intend to feed the mind, not the machine.
- Attention is our currency; we spend wisely.
- Tools facilitate an action, not a solution.
- Intention is the seed for all we aim to grow.
If you resonate with this definition of the Intentional Web, it is yours to have and to represent. Propagate it and integrate it into your own little node of this web we hold so dear.
Oooh look what just arrived in the mail. From Texas to Zumaia! Thank you so much, @hiro 🙏😊
Trying the new editor set up by @manton. On Safari on iOS. Not very sure what I am supposed to find, since I haven’t been using the online editor for a while, but this is working fine.
I’ve been trying out NotePlan lately, and it’s a fantastic app for macOS and iPadOS. It’s great for taking notes, managing tasks, keeping a calendar, and even Bullet Journaling. The way it gives you date related notes (daily, weekly, monthly, quarterly, yearly notes), alongside blank project notes, is unparalleled. You have to try it, it’s difficult for me to explain. The developer, Eduard Metzger, is always improving it with new plug-ins, templates, and AI tools. Working in NotePlan is a real pleasure.
However, when it comes to task management, as always, as ever, I’m going back to OmniFocus. I have all my work-related projects (over 200 client cases) in OmniFocus. The features I can’t live without are tags, defer and due dates, perspectives, and the amazing project review system. I also rely on a few Omni Automations.
So, I’ve decided to use OmniFocus for project and task management, and NotePlan for research, note-taking, and journaling. Hookmark lets me link the OmniFocus project, the NotePlan note, and the Finder folder for each client case. Plus, a Keyboard Maestro macro makes it easy to automate the process of creating a new project and linking all these resources together.
My ‘summer cleaning’ protocol is all set, and I’m ready to get back to work next week. Not that I’m looking forward to it.
I just ditched my 17 year long @eumrz handle. I will be @estebantxo from now on. Here’s a very short introduction.
I guess a growing number of us feel this way.
I am beginning to feel squeezed for every penny, increasing prices of phones, services, and everything they can. Limiting features to the US and generally behaving like a petulant child when they have to comply with laws that protect users.
This is what I wrote:
I should go back to blogging and interacting with people in social media. I am not even reading my RSS feeds. Somebody told me that if I wanted to go analog I should go all in and I really took it to heart. I am reading more and writing more for myself and overall I am much less stressed than I used to be, but I miss the web. Or do I? I’m not even sure.
And this is MS Copilot’s version. Prompt: Rewrite this and clean it up.
I’ve been considering a return to blogging and engaging with others on social media, as I’ve neglected my RSS feeds lately. A friend suggested that if I truly wanted to embrace an analog lifestyle, I should commit fully, and I’ve taken that advice seriously. Now, I find myself reading and writing more for personal enjoyment, which has significantly reduced my stress levels. However, there’s a part of me that longs for the connection the internet provides. Yet, I’m torn, unsure if that’s truly what I miss.
I hesitate about building a Now page because I have the feeling that I’ve been in the same state for the last twenty years (trying to keep up with my job) and I’m afraid a Now page is going to make it evident.
I read about a feature in Bluesky that lets you share a mute-list,with accounts that, for some particular reason, someone doesn’t want to read. One can subscribe to that kind of list and mute that people too. It’s the last thing I’d want for myself. I want to be exposed to views different from mine.
Something good can be said about my new digital habits when I find out about an Apple event on new iPads after it has happened, and I don’t feel like missing anything out.
Update: Oh, it’s not this Tuesday, it’s next Tuesday. All right, still don’t care.
Day 30: hometown #mbapr
This is the town I now live in, not actually my hometown. But I don’t have a proper one and I wanted to show you this picture.
